


In Starfleet You Can Be a New Man

by rabidchild67



Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Future, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6364582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Washington goes on, “Your aptitude tests in physics, mathematics—logic even—are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only genius-level repeat offender in the Tri-state area?”</p><p>“Maybe I love being a polymath pain in the ass.”</p><p>“So use those talents somewhere they’ll mean something, something special. Join Starfleet. Help make it the kind of place you’d be proud to be.”</p><p>The Hamilton/Star Trek fusion fic literally no one wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Starfleet You Can Be a New Man

**Author's Note:**

> New tags and characters will be added as new chapters post. This will eventually have a Mature or Explicit rating, but not for a while.

There’s a certain clarity that comes from being punched in the face, a moment when that shot of adrenaline hits your bloodstream, your thoughts coalesce, and your mind is able to focus with a terrifying swiftness. It’s kind of a rush, kind of addictive—except for the fact a guy is pummeling you in the face, of course. 

These are the thoughts going through Alex’s mind as the shot to his jaw is enough to flip him around in mid-air and he hits the floor of the dive bar with an undignified slap. Adrenaline pushes him to his feet before the sting of the grimy floor tiles impacting with his face even registers. His hands come up and he lashes out, a jab, quick and vicious, gets the other guy in the throat, his mouth forming a comical “O” as he staggers back choking. Alex barely has time to smirk before the dude’s friends are on him, a pair of thugs as wide as they are tall. One massive fist sails toward Alex’s face that he easily ducks; he pops up with a quick jab to the newcomer’s nose, but the third man lands a kidney punch before Alex even knows he’s there. Alex gasps, twisting to protect his side as the guy he busted in the nose grabs for him. One meaty arm snakes around his collarbone and he’s pinned, the guy’s bulk rendering every move he uses to squirm out of it fruitless. 

“You guys, that’s enough!” 

The voice belongs to the girl Alex had been trying to pick up—she’s Starfleet, just like these meatheads—and they ignore her. Eliza Schuyler, she said her name was, and that she could buy her own drinks, fuck you very much, and then she smiled at him so prettily he nearly stopped breathing. Alex thought they had a pretty good banter going until the Hulk decided to intervene.

“This Townie bothering you?” he’d asked, rolling up behind them at the bar.

 _Townie?_ Alex thought with a wince.

“Beyond belief, but I can handle it,” Eliza has said, rolling her eyes. She had gorgeous eyes—mischievous, sparkling and quick like mercury—which ought to have been an immediate red flag. Intelligence had always been his weakness. Naturally he wanted to impress her. 

“You can handle me,” Alex said, grinning, “if that’s an invitation.”

She rolled her eyes and was about to say something witty (Alex could just tell), when the slab of meat behind them piped in with, “Hey, mind your manners.” 

“Relax, Cupcake, it was a joke,” Alex replied.

“Come on, Madison, give it a rest,” Eliza said.

“Maybe you can’t count, Townie,” Madison said, talking over her protests. “There are three of us and only one of you.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed as he looked up—and up and up—at the other two slabs of meat beside Madison; their size had him at a distinct disadvantage, which was exactly the way he liked it. “Well, get two more guys and it’ll be an even fight,” Alex said with a smirk, clapping the man on his shoulder—a bad idea. Madison grabbed Alex’s arm with crushing force, his other fist coming up even as Alex ducked his first blow. The second landed, sending him reeling into the lovely Miss Eliza, who screamed angrily when Alex’s face landed between her breasts. 

“Hey, asshole!” she yelled, pushing him away, and into Madison’s waiting fist. 

Which brings the story to the present: Alex being held back by one of Madison’s goon friends as the man himself punches Alex repeatedly in the face. 

_Good times_.

He’s about to spit blood at someone, he’s not too picky about who, when a sound so shrill it’s painful cuts through the chaos, the jukebox, and the blood drumming in Alex’s ears, making him flinch. The stooges holding onto him stiffen and drop him, turning toward the door as a man with an angry look on his face enters, standing menacingly just inside the doorway. “Outside, every one of you. Now,” he says, almost conversationally, and every ‘fleet rat in the joint—fully half the bar’s current inhabitants—makes for the street in a desperate bid to get out before whoever this guy is… does what exactly, Alex isn’t sure, but it’s pretty funny.

“You can whistle really loud,” Alex says through a haze of blood and the ringing in his ears. He may have passed out for a moment there, he's not sure. 

“It's a skill,” the guy says dryly. He's tall, or at least it seems like it from all the way down on the floor, and built like the proverbial masonry commode: broad shoulders, thick thighs, and, Alex would bet, an ass he could bounce a quarter off of. If quarters still existed. He’s older than Alex—at least 20 years—and holds himself with an air of entitlement that commands immediate attention, though not in a bad way, Alex thinks, more like he's worked hard to earn respect and now he just expects it. Alex hates himself for it, but he feels compelled to either salute this guy or piss his pants. He’s pretty sure he might’ve done the latter, though it could just be that he’s lying in a puddle of spilled beer. “You going to lie there all night?”

“I was thinking yeah; it’s super comfortable. Might move in if the rent’s cheap.”

One of the guy’s thick eyebrows crawls across his forehead as if trying to escape his glittering eyes. “Do you always play the fool, son, or are you concussed?”

“Yes.”

“To which question?”

“Both.” Alex groans as he tries to get up. The other man leans over and offers a hand; Alex grasps it and is hauled to his feet as if he weighs nothing. He feels like he might swoon, but he’s not sure that’s at all manly, and he feels a strange compulsion to impress this man. “Thanks,” he says instead, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand; it comes back smeared with blood. Alex makes an annoyed sound and crosses back to the bar, grabbing a pair of cocktail napkins from the dispenser and twisting them up, shoving them in his nostrils to staunch the flow. He doesn’t think it’s broken—this time. 

When he turns, he sees the man has taken a seat at a nearby table. Since the fight, the bar’s pretty much cleared out. As Alex stares, the guy pushes a chair out with his foot, inviting him to sit down. Alex approaches, but doesn’t sit—yet. “Do I know you?”

“No.”

“Do you know me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not very forthcoming, are you?”

“I find, when there’s a silence, people are compelled to fill it. That’s when you learn the most about them.”

Alex stares at him for a long beat that turns into a solid minute. The guy blinks slowly; the lights from the Budweiser sign in the window gleaming off his shaved head make him look almost ominous. The urge to say something is painful: Alex literally bites his tongue to keep from speaking.

“Good,” the older man says with a wide smile, and Alex feels like he’s won something. “You’re Alexander Hamilton. I’m Captain George Washington, and I’m here to recruit you for Starfleet.”

Alex laughs, a full-throated belly grabber, and plops himself into the chair on offer. “You have got to be out of your goddamn mind. No wonder those assholes took off running, they must be scared of you.”

“Oh, they’re scared all right, just not for the reasons you’d think.”

“What might those be?”

“They would never want to disappoint me, you see. I’m their commanding officer, it’s how respect and leadership work.”

“You could also make or break their futures though, right? I mean, they’re not likely to cross you. That’s a lot of power to have over someone.”

“Power I would never dream of using—that would be entirely unethical.” Washington is leaning forward in his seat, warming to the conversation; his eyes hold Alex’s, a challenge in them. Alex is riveted.

“But they don’t know that, do they?”

“Now you’re getting it, young man.”

“Maybe I do. Doesn’t mean I want it.”

“Don’t you?”

“Most definitely not. If you know me, as you say you do, you’ll know I’m no fan of Starfleet.”

“It’s a peacekeeping armada.”

Alex looks at him, side-eyed, with as much hauteur as he can muster with two napkins sticking out of his nose. “With big guns and bigger ships. Don’t come and talk to me about keeping the peace when you personally sit atop several metric kilotons of firepower capable of destroying entire cities, _General_ Washington.”

“We don’t have generals, but thank you for the promotion in rank.”

“Captain, then, excuse me. You’re barking up the wrong tree, regardless. Starfleet is literally the last place I would want to hang my hat.”

Washington clears his throat and raises a hand, index finger high, and recites, “ _Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition, of others._ ”

“You’re quoting my own words back to me?” 

Washington smiles. 

“It’s from my thesis, it’s not even finished yet. How did you even get it to read it?” 

Washington shrugs. “I’ve read everything you’ve ever written.”

“You’re taking it out of context.”

“Am I? You’re defending the cost of membership for Federation member planets, but the same argument could be made for funding Starfleet. A standing force, capable of defending home worlds is a necessity these days.”

“The same tired reasoning for stockpiling weapons has been used for centuries, and the stories always end the same—with an endless cycle of death, it’s indefensible. You forget you’re talking to a historian, Captain.”

“A brilliant historian,” Washington says, and Alex hates that his words flatter, “with quite the rap sheet, if memory serves. Did you really hack the justice department’s computers to return a result for the university's President whenever your fingerprints are scanned by the police?”

Alex laughs; that bit of code had been a pain in the ass to get right, but he’s still proud as hell of it. “Only allegedly. No files were charged.”

Washington goes on, “Your aptitude tests in physics, mathematics—logic even—are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only genius-level repeat offender in the Tri-state area?”

“Maybe I love being a polymath pain in the ass.”

“So use those talents somewhere they’ll mean something, something special. Join Starfleet. Help make it the kind of place you’d be proud to be.”

Alex shakes his head and waves the bartender over, orders two tequila shots. “You guys must be really down in your recruiting quotas,” he says when the barkeep leaves. He removes the napkins from his nose and sniffs experimentally; no new blood seems to be forthcoming. 

“I knew your father,” Washington says quietly.

Alex can feel his face draining of blood. “Is that supposed to be your big selling point? If anything, you just lost me.”

“His sacrifice on the Kelvin made him a hero—he saved 800 of his fellow crew.”

The Kelvin disaster had been big news two years after James Hamilton had seen his family for the last time: a massive Romulan ship with weaponry so advanced it had carved through the Kelvin’s defenses like they were non-existent had appeared out of nowhere and attacked without provocation. The ship’s captain and bridge crew had been killed, leaving James, an enlisted officer in engineering, as the only person capable of steering the damn thing. He’d ordered a full evacuation before setting a collision course up the ass of the Romulan ship. It failed to destroy the enemy, but had crippled their ship long enough for the Kelvin’s evacuees to get away safely. 

The bartender returns with the shots, which Alex downs one after the other. “My father the hero,” he says bitterly, “abandoned his family, without so much as a goodbye note, to go gallivanting off into the black. We found out where he was only after the story hit the holonews feeds. Don’t tell me about his sacrifice. ‘Sacrifice’ is what my mother had to do to put food on the table for her two sons. ‘Sacrifice’ was my brother—“ Alex chokes on the rest of the sentence, breathing deeply through his nostrils.

“What about your brother?”

“That’s none of your goddamn business.” He stands. “I think we’re through here.”

Washington stands as well. “I’ve upset you, and I’m sorry for that, it wasn’t my intention. But I still think you’re the kind of man Starfleet could use. You could be an officer in four years. You could have your own ship in eight. You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important, and it’s worth defending.”

“You done?”

Washington’s shoulders slump just a little. “I guess I am. But if you change your mind, the shuttle for new recruits leaves from Queens tomorrow at 0800.” He heads for the door, but turns back with his hand on the handle. “You know, your father may have been a disappointment to you, but he captained a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including mine. I dare you to do better.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your time.


End file.
